On Jan. 6, 2021, amid the chaos outside the U.S. Capitol, Jared Wise — a former FBI supervisory special agent — stepped up to a police line on the building’s upper west terrace. With rioters surging around him, pepper spray filling the air, and law enforcement battered and outnumbered, Wise berated officers as “Nazis” and “Gestapo.” Then, as fellow Trump supporters knocked an officer to the ground, Wise shouted, “Kill ’em! Kill ’em! Get ’em! Get ’em!”
That moment, captured on multiple police body cameras and introduced as evidence in Wise’s trial, seemed destined to stain his career forever. Instead, less than five years later, Wise now serves as a senior adviser at the Department of Justice — the very agency responsible for prosecuting the Jan. 6 attack — under a second Trump administration that has dramatically redefined its mission.
The footage of Wise, obtained by NPR through a review of thousands of Jan. 6 court exhibits, had never been published before. It shows a man who once worked inside the FBI’s counterterrorism ranks now raging against law enforcement on one of the most violent days in modern American history.
Wise’s journey from criminal defendant to high-ranking DOJ official was made possible by a sweeping order from President Trump on his first day back in office: the dismissal of all pending Jan. 6 prosecutions. Wise, who faced charges including civil disorder and aiding and abetting an assault on police, saw his trial abruptly end in January 2025 — just after both sides had delivered closing arguments.
The administration defends his hiring. “Jared Wise is a valued member of the Justice Department and we appreciate his contributions to our team,” a DOJ spokesperson said in a statement. Behind the scenes, NPR found, Wise has been working on internal reviews tied to alleged “weaponization” of law enforcement — a key talking point for Trump’s allies.
To prosecutors who once sought to hold him accountable, the decision is staggering. “The Department of Justice could have hired anyone,” said Greg Rosen, who led the DOJ’s Capitol Siege Section. “They chose someone who was credibly alleged to have encouraged rioters to kill police officers protecting the Capitol.”
On Jan. 6, Wise entered the Capitol through a forced door, spent about 10 minutes inside, and exited through a broken window before lingering on the grounds for hours. By the time he confronted the police line at 4:21 p.m., the building had been breached for two hours, members of Congress had been evacuated, and chants of “Hang Mike Pence!” echoed through the mob. Officers were attacked with bats, metal poles, stun guns, and chemical sprays.
In court, Wise admitted to yelling “Kill ’em” but claimed it was an “angry reaction” to what he believed was police brutality. He testified that he never meant it literally. Prosecutors challenged that explanation, pointing out that just seconds earlier he had clearly meant the insults he hurled at officers.
Wise was not convicted — not because a jury acquitted him, but because Trump’s mass clemency order shut down his prosecution. The president also pardoned or commuted the sentences of more than 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants, including members of extremist groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, some with convictions for assaulting police. Investigations into ongoing cases were closed, and dozens of career prosecutors were fired.
The political message was unmistakable: In Trump’s second term, loyalty to the cause of Jan. 6 was not disqualifying — it could be a qualification.
Wise’s current role is not fully clear, but email records show he reports to the deputy attorney general’s office. His work aligns closely with that of Ed Martin, Trump’s newly appointed U.S. pardon attorney and head of the “Weaponization Working Group,” who has suggested that violence against police on Jan. 6 may have been justified.
For Rosen and others who defended the Capitol that day — or prosecuted those who attacked it — the hiring of Wise is more than controversial. It’s a sign that the administration’s “Back the Blue” rhetoric has a glaring Jan. 6 exception.
“The hypocrisy is astounding,” Rosen said. “This isn’t about justice. It’s about rewriting history to reward the people who tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power.”
What happened to Jared Wise is no anomaly — it’s part of a broader effort to recast Jan. 6 not as an assault on democracy, but as a cause for vindication. And inside the Department of Justice, that revision is now being written from the top down.